Our first EdTech focused community event in Birmingham!

By Sahdya Darr & DTBC Team

The UK’s EdTech (Educational Technology) sector is growing, but how do Black and Black Heritage (BBH) parents, carers and anyone with an interest in our children’s education feel about the increasing involvement of the private sector (companies and businesses) in education? Are these technologies assessed and checked as to what benefit they bring or whether harms can occur? What happens to the data that is collected about our children by these technologies? These are just a few of the questions we have raised at Data, Tech and Black Communities (DTBC). We were interested to know if our concerns were shared by others.

We figured the best way to do this was to speak with those affected! So, DTBC community organisers began speaking and listening to members of Birmingham’s BBH communities. We engaged with parents, carers, teachers and others in the wider community in a number of ways including a teacher roundtable and attending parent coffee mornings. Our aim was to find out more about how EdTech is being used in schools in Birmingham.

On 30th September 2023, we held our first community event to share our early findings* about the use of EdTech in Birmingham schools and our concerns and to gauge community interest in joining our research project into the impact of EdTech on BBH children.

The event was held at the Birmingham Hippodrome and it brought together a wide range of people–children to grandparents.

Understanding what EdTech looks like in practice

Attendees already had a good understanding of the systemic racial disparities that already marr the educational experience of many BBH children. Introducing EdTech without careful scrutiny could further embed and even increase these disparities. But first we needed to have a common view of the types of Edtech being used in Birmingham schools. So, we had a number of table discussions facilitated by a card-based activity encouraging attendees to sort out which technologies they considered to be EdTech, and to discuss practicalities and implications of EdTech use. This served as useful prompts for a lively and wide-ranging discussion.

We touched on how the use of data-driven technologies by schools became very popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. We also thought about the ways that these technologies are being presented, by the government and businesses, as the solution to helping teachers reduce their workloads and achieve better learning outcomes for the children they teach.

Attendees also shared their personal experience and insights about how EdTech is being used in some schools in Birmingham and what impact it is having. This ranged from schools sending all correspondence to parents and carers via EdTech apps to insisting on the use of data-driven cashless payment systems linked to these apps. A parent, who had chosen not to use these apps, shared that when they indicated a preference for making payments for a school trip without using the cashless payment app they were informed that their child would be excluded from the trip. This shows how implementing digital solutions without providing alternatives can result in (social) exclusion. One of the children in attendance shared how their teacher used an Edtech app to check who had or hadn’t done their homework and how this information was visible to the entire class.

The fast evolution of EdTech made many participants unsure about the purpose of some of these apps and how effective they are in achieving their stated aims. There were also concerns about the use of these apps in the surveillance of children. In fact, many EdTech products extensively surveil (or have the ability to surveil) children and it’s not always clear how this data is shared. Some parents could not recall being asked for consent for use of specific apps.

Consent and GDPR

Some time was spent discussing the issue of consent and how this relies on an understanding and trust between the school and parents/carers. Participants were keen to know more about the role of Ofsted and also GDPR in protecting children against the risks and harms of EdTech. All were in agreement that schools should seek the informed permission of parents and carers to use EdTech with their children. Although consent is requested by schools, usually at the beginning of the academic year, there was a feeling that this was just a tick box exercise. It was felt that consent should be sought again when an app is in use and it becomes clearer to parents/carers how it is being used. In other words, parents didn’t feel they were able to give informed consent. One parent felt that the ability of parents and carers to fully understand the security and privacy related concerns with the apps being used in schools is limited because of a lack of time, and technical understanding. There was broad agreement that for consent to be meaningful, schools should clearly explain how they are using educational apps and technologies so that consent was informed.

Global patterns and trends

Participants heard from Adrienne Williams, a Research Fellow at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) based in the US. Adrienne spoke about her experience and research of EdTech use in the US and the wide and varied harms that have been created through poorly regulated EdTech use– from reports of mediocre education provision; through to children’s data being used for law enforcement and teachers facing penalties due to faulty performance monitoring. She ended the session saying that there were still opportunities in the UK to avoid some of these poor outcomes. Community power and using the law could see these harms being avoided.

Building community knowledge and power

The feedback confirmed that the concerns we have at DTBC are shared by others within Black communities. There are many people who are keen to build their knowledge and understanding of these issues and get involved in this project. This is why the next stage of our work was to recruit Community Researchers. This is one of the ways that we are looking to build data and research skills within Black communities in Birmingham so we are better equipped to query, scrutinise and challenge the use of EdTech in their schools.

We’re excited about the opportunity to forge new alliances and to keep working with communities to understand the impact EdTech is having on BBH children so that we’re able to address concerns and prevent further inequality and discrimination.

Reference

• To learn more about how we are gathering data our lead analyst Gabriel Olabode will be publishing his data journey. Read his first post Decoding Data: Navigating the Art and Science of Data Collection for DTBC’s Birmingham EdTech Project

This project is funded by Open Society Foundations